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It's a good article, but I don't agree with the arguments against Amber.. The idea that her card would be hard to balance would also go for any other rookie, more so the defensive roles when our guild already has a "ball killing" focus under one of our captains..

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(The beginning of this is a repost from my response on FB, but the middle is new and has what I think is a pretty key point.)

It’s a good article; I happen to disagree (strongly), but it’s very well thought out, and it’s well-known I make my wargaming decisions based on the story, so...

That said, two things:

1) If the woman in question is a horrible person who wants to deepen the Guild’s criminal/underworld connections as Esters does, don’t trust her intuition. Especially when it goes against that of the Grand Brewer. 😉

In all seriousness on this point, I do see a bit of a parallel in our community to the split in the game: you have Tapper’s crew who are the “family” mentality Brewers, loyal to the kutte, going after Amber for narrative reasons (“she’s one of us!”). You have other players, on the other hand, who are voicing more I’ll for the sake of argument say pragmatic “what does another attacking midfielder do for us?” comments that seem more in line with Esters’ way of thinking- the effectiveness of the guild or its power level rather than its identity.

I think (with nothing but intuition to back this up, but...) there’s a very real chance that SFG is watching this with interest, and that getting Amber back or failing to do so could tip the narrative balance between Tapper and Esters one way or the other for good- the side that wins their rookie could gain control of the guild in the narrative. For that reason alone, I think it’s critical that we succeed in bringing Amber back to the Guild.

For those of you who say “bah, the narrative, who cares?”, that makes me sad, but I have a case to make to you as well- see point two. =)

2) I genuinely think Amber as an attacking midfielder with a football focus will bring a lot to our Guild on the tabletop. I don’t believe in factions getting models that break their playstyle (everybody should just play the same faction if every faction is going to have everything), so somebody like Kami joining us is something I actually view as BAD for the game as a whole, because it unbalances the design space and gives us something we “shouldn’t” have. Amber further opening up our 2/2 game would be an excellent add who fits the guild’s theme. We could really use another player who can “go both ways” and score or fight as needed; right now, most of our players lean one way or the other, so I think a strong, versatile piece could mechanically be very, very good for us.